How do I paint a miniature — base coat, shade and highlight?

The three-stage method every miniature painting style is built on, why thin paint is the whole technique rather than a refinement, and where to stop for a model that is going on a table.

Difficulty: beginner
Time: 1 hr 30 min
Read: 5 min

Short answer

Base coat in thin coats until the colour is solid, shade with a wash that runs into the recesses, then highlight the raised areas with a lighter version of the base colour, stopping short of the edge each time. Dark goes down, light goes up. Every stage uses paint thinned to about the consistency of milk.

Do this first

Should I prime miniatures black, white or grey?

Almost all miniature painting, from a tabletop army to a competition piece, is the same three moves repeated at increasing levels of care. Learning them once on a cheap model teaches more than any amount of reading, and the single thing that separates a good result from a bad one is not skill — it is how thin the paint is.

What you'll need

A primed miniature
Two or three good brushes — a size 1 or 2 will do most of it
Acrylic paints, a wash or shade, and thinner or flow improver
A wet palette, or a ceramic tile and a damp sponge (optional)
A good light, ideally daylight-balanced

Base, shade and highlight on a fold of cloth

Step by step

Thin the paint before you do anything else.On a palette, not in the pot. Roughly the consistency of milk. This is not an optimisation — unthinned miniature paint fills the sculpted recesses, and once they are full there is nothing for a wash to run into and no detail to highlight.
Base coat in two or three thin coats.The first coat will look streaky and patchy. That is correct. The second and third build to a solid, even colour without burying detail. Judging the paint by the first coat is what makes people thicken it.
Work from the inside outwards.Paint the areas that are hardest to reach first — the chest under an arm, the recesses of a cloak — because you can tidy over a mistake on an outer surface but not on a buried one.
Shade with a wash and let it do the work.A dark, free-flowing wash over the base colour runs into the recesses by capillary action and leaves the raised surfaces roughly as they were. Apply it to a specific area rather than dunking the whole model, and take excess off the flat parts with a dry brush tip.
Highlight with a lighter version of the base colour.Mix the base colour with a lighter tone, apply only to the surfaces facing the light, and stop short of the edge so a strip of the previous colour still shows. Two or three progressively smaller and lighter layers give a gradient rather than a stripe.
Add an edge highlight last.The lightest mix on the sharp edges only — a shoulder pad rim, a sword edge, the crest of a fold. Use the side of the brush rather than the tip and draw it along the edge. This is the stage that makes a model read across a table.
Decide where to stop by what the model is for.A gaming model needs base, wash and one highlight, and it looks good at arm's length. A display model justifies four or five layers and blending. Painting an army to display standard is why armies do not get finished.
Varnish it if it is going to be handled.A hard gloss varnish for protection followed by a matt coat for appearance. Unvarnished miniature paint rubs off surprisingly fast where fingers grip.

Tips

A wet palette keeps paint at a constant consistency for hours instead of thickening between strokes. It is the single most useful cheap thing you can add to miniature painting.
Good light matters more than a good brush. A daylight-balanced lamp shows the transitions you are trying to make, and painting under a warm bulb makes every colour choice slightly wrong.
Paint the first models of an army first, not last. Your skill improves fast, and you want the models you painted worst to be the ones you started with.

Common mistakes

Painting straight from the pot — It fills every recess, obscures the sculpted detail you paid for, and leaves visible ridges. Every other technique depends on the paint being thin, so this one mistake blocks all of them.
Dipping the whole model in a wash — It shades everything equally, including surfaces that should stay bright, and it pools in flat areas as a tidemark. Apply the wash where the shadow belongs.
Highlighting the whole raised surface — Covering the entire raised area with the lighter colour replaces the base colour rather than sitting on top of it, so you lose the transition. Stopping short of the edge each time is the technique.
Trying to paint an army to display standard — It is a hundred hours per unit and the army never gets finished. Choose a standard that suits the purpose and apply it consistently.

If it doesn't work

Detail has disappeared

Cause: Paint too thick — Fix: Strip and start again — thick paint cannot be thinned once dry. Thin to milk consistency and use more coats.

The wash pooled on a flat surface and dried as a stain

Cause: Too much wash on an area with nowhere to run — Fix: Re-base coat that area and apply the wash only into the recesses, taking the excess off with a dry brush tip while wet.

Highlights look like stripes

Cause: The transition is too abrupt — Fix: Add an intermediate mix between base and highlight, and make each layer smaller than the one before. Glazing very thin paint over the join softens it.

Paint dries on the palette before you use it

Cause: Warm dry room, ordinary palette — Fix: Use a wet palette, or add retarder. Both extend working time substantially.

Paint rubs off where you hold the model

Cause: No varnish, or paint applied over grease — Fix: Varnish finished models, and hold them by the base or a painting handle while working.

Questions people ask

What is drybrushing and where does it fit?

Loading a brush, wiping almost all the paint off onto kitchen roll, and dragging the nearly dry bristles across raised texture so paint catches only on the high points. It is a fast highlight for texture — fur, chainmail, stonework, bases — and crude on smooth surfaces. It also destroys brushes, so keep an old one for it.

How many brushes do I need?

Two or three. A size 1 or 2 with a good point does the vast majority of the work, a larger one for base coating and drybrushing, and a fine one for eyes. A good brush that holds its point beats a set of twenty.

How long should a miniature take?

A tabletop standard infantry model is well under an hour once you have the routine. A character painted carefully is several evenings. If a rank-and-file model is taking three hours, the standard is set too high for the number you have to paint.